Apocalyptic Dawn
by YokaiShinari
Summary: Based on a popular prediction, in which Carl Grimes is the last to survive from all main characters. The story starts much sooner, when a great threat attacked their home, and all they could do was run for their lives;;


_Trigger warning: usual walking dead stuff like mention of gore. Also mention of Caryl ship. Enjoy!_

* * *

I remember that we were running.

I know I was, because the images around me were changing rapidly. There was something in the air. Inside me. Around me.

 _Around us._

Was it fear? Probably. Fear of everything. But it had always been in me, that fear fuels me into action.

The fear in the air. The adrenaline in my veins. Everything was pushing me to react. Don't think. React.

If you think, you die in this world.

 _Dying…_

I remember, as stench of death was around, and smoke stung my eyes, bringing salty tears, my legs were not stopping.

I had to protect her. Everything else we had, had already been taken from us, but I had her, and that was enough to keep me running. She was everything. She was my hope. From the very beginning, as I looked in her blue eyes, I vowed to keep her safe. I had to protect _her_.

Besides, I'd promised my dad, I would. So I was doing exactly that. My baby sister. _Judith_.

With her clinging to my neck, I was fleeing. The scenes I was leaving behind… Unspeakable. Not even now I could describe, what I saw.

Blood. Death. Endless roar of the undead. Screams of the living.

In the Old World, when you were screaming, believe it or not, there'd been always someone, who would have relieved your pain, whatever it was. You could run and find peace, safe place. The pain would disappear with time.

The Outbreak brought uncertainty. Nothing could remain in place. Everything we'd had, it got lost. I lost it. Since the beginning. Everything.

But I had her.

Somewhere among the screaming roar I heard a calling. Among Judith's cries and my own curses, my boiling blood in my ears, a calling echoed somewhere behind. My name. But I couldn't stop.

The voices in my head were too loud. My father's last shouts, before he jumped into the chaos. Enid's last assurance of her love. _And her kick to get me going._ Someone's pleads. Someone's curses. The screams.

The noise was too much, so I ignored the new sound. I just kept on running. Through the woods. Opposite direction of the herd that'd swiped everything. Praying to whatever was left, that I wouldn't hit a tree. Not with Judith in my hands. One eye can change a lot. Especially the lack of it.

A lost walker crept somewhere in my vision. When you see them, you don't think, you react. But you got to be smart. You search if there are more, before you take the shot. You have to calculate your chances.

There were more. I got scared. I ignored them. Or had I acted smart? I don't know. I just had to kept running, hoping they wouldn't chase me down in my half-blind state. The branches that were constantly hitting my face were strangely painfully enough. Arm holding the gun was hitting tree barks with my every stumble.

The calling repeated. Closer. The voice familiar as every shout I'd experienced just minutes before. Or was it hours?

I felt numb, but kept on stomping tiredly further. There was no stopping. I couldn't stop. I knew I couldn't. I pushed all noise away from my conscious. Focused on my feet. Focused on the trees. On the death that would come, If I hadn't reacted soon enough.

Only when I almost lost my balance over uneven terrain sewn with roots, I had to remind myself, that I wasn't alone. My strength was crucial in survival of more than just me. Judith. We had to be together. We had to hide at some point. We had to wait the death off. Only then I stopped. Heaving on everything, I looked around widening my only eye as much as I possibly could. Everything was so heavy. My legs. Why wouldn't they keep me up?

That walker wasn't normal. He kept coming at me. At us. He kept avoiding trees. He kept _running._

I tried to raise my arm. Aim at the abomination. Keep it away. Kill it. Protect her.

" _Carl! Get up!"_

That walker was a runner. And he had a voice of someone I'd known. I didn't want my head to play with me. It had to stop. The run had to stop. I had to kill it.

Only when the bawling sweetheart in my hand, raised her head and with fearful voice started calling incoherently towards the approaching figure, I sobered.

" _Come ON!"_

He aimed in the air and shot. The sound so loud and sudden. My ears told my brain that just a moment before, a dreadful snarling was very close. Then, an actual walker was laying not a meter from my feet, and the figure that had been running towards me cleared in my vision. It was one of ours. Filthy clothes and a wild look in his eyes. My friend. A relief.

His rough hands reached for my sister and I gave him her. I would trust him with everything I got.

Before I knew it, he yanked me on my feet and was checking me. Everything had to be clean from death. _No tolerance for walkers._

" _We gotta move, man. You did good. Now come on!"_

Daryl.

A guy who'd lost everything even Before. A man who lost more. More than any of us had. And he still kept going. Doing anything for anybody. Giving everything he had. His inner strength was something so impossible to find in most of us – he had it all. The energy to keep up. Hope. He kept it. For us.

However, after that group appeared with a threat so great, even bigger than we had previously, after they took most of our loved ones. After they got Carol… That man was nothing like a human after that. No one ever had shut down as much as he did. No one ever as him died inside so loudly. I'd never seen him so traumatized as then. We thought he wouldn't have made it alive. Days after days he would disappear in the woods around Alexandria. The search party would stumble across tree barks with bloody scratches that belonged to a human. Daryl's screams were echoing around mercilessly. I remember… Killed walkers were found gutted, smeared on the ground like a butter on a slice of bread. Animalistic dread. Indescribable pain. That man had a part of him torn off.

Dad had told me then about some kind of spiritual connections other people sometimes would have. Daryl's unity with Carol must have been one of those things. I didn't know what that meant then. I wouldn't have known.

His mind settled after that one time, when Judith came up to him, as he was sitting on our home's porch one evening. Sober, because he'd already drank every drop of alcohol that we weren't able to hide from him. Sitting still, because he gave up being strangled time after time as he was on his destroying spree. Patched up, after another attempt of deep self-harming session. Tired and done. Just _there_.

Judith had cut her finger on a paper. Quite deep as for such a meek material. Her skin was always so soft. She cried so much. She had an aid put on that and a doll to help keep the pain away. She'd seen Daryl's bandages. She'd heard his cries. Maybe she'd thought that they were same, because that evening, she approached him. We were so anxious, what he'd do, but somehow we knew, she was the only person he would never think of hurting.

As we found them, Daryl was hugging Jude tight in his arms, with tears on his face. Tired, done, but calm. Finally calm, as they both were asleep. He'd always had a soft spot for her. In a most innocent way possible. And she was everyone's emotional leader. Her little arms and eyes that always'd seen everything good, she was a band aid herself. A little star, everyone just loved and wished upon.

She brought our archer back to us. Our hunter, her uncle. Beloved friend of ours.

There wouldn't be a better person to run with her as we were running then. Not even me. I wasn't that strong. I couldn't accept that back then, but I tolerated it. We had to work together. There was always that thing my dad was repeating as often as possible, so it would sink in our brains in the darkest hours:

 _We gotta stick together._

* * *

 _A/N: Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed! I know that better structure of this kind of story would be to keep it non-divided, but I just wanted to share with you a chunk of my idea, because after getting a sudden flow I wrote (wow) four pages and stopped, and I don't know when I'll get to it again._

 _Please, share your thoughts. Have a great day/good night!_


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